“What?”
“Introduce you to Todd. You don’t have to show me your list. I know about him. I could kind of pave the way, ease him into it.”
Miles considered it.
“It’s a long way to go.”
“That’s okay. And you could send your driver home.” Chloe took a phone from her pocket, set it on the table. “I’ve got my Pacer parked out around back.”
“A Pacer?” Miles said, incredulous.
She flashed him a smile. “One of the wagon models. The radio doesn’t work and all the wood paneling has peeled off, but it gets the job done. You don’t have to get all snobby. What do you drive? A fucking Porsche?”
Miles started to tell her he’d just given it away, but held his tongue.
Chloe was tapping away on the phone, sending a text. “Todd always gets right back to me,” she said. “He’s kinda... strange? And his mom? She’s something else.” She laughed. “Like I’m normal. She’s the one who’s really into this whole trace-your-DNA thing and got Todd to do his.”
Chloe looked down at her phone again, the absence of a response.
“Huh,” she said. “He’s not answering. That’s weird.”
Twenty-One
New Haven, CT
The day after Gilbert had shown her the list, Caroline found herself in a room at the Omni Hotel in the Yale University neighborhood. She was in one of the luxury units, on an upper floor, standing at the window with a view of the Yale campus. She could see the Sterling Memorial Library, the Law School Towers, the High Street Arch. Well, she could have seen those things had it not been for the black, silk Hermès scarf covering her eyes and knotted tightly at the back of her head.
She had followed his instructions explicitly.
Caroline was to go to the hotel desk at four in the afternoon — not one minute before and not one minute after — and ask for the room key that would be waiting for her.
She was then to go to the room, let herself in.
There would be a recently opened bottle of champagne, chilling, and two flutes. She was to fill one, have a drink, unwind.
A tub would already have been run for her. Caroline was to strip down, have a relaxing bath. She had mixed feelings about this part. Did he think she wasn’t clean enough? But she had to admit, he got the water temperature just right, and it was relaxing.
At half past four, she was to get out, dry off. When she came out of the bathroom, she was to slip into the intimate apparel laid out for her on the bed. Lingerie from Agent Provocateur, Bordelle, other high-end brands she’d seen in magazines but never felt she could afford.
And the scarf.
She was to go to the window, fold the scarf into a four-inchwide band, and tie it around her head, blindfolding herself.
And then she was to wait.
It might be no more than a minute. It might be ten. When she heard the door open, sensed someone coming into the room, she was not to move. He would approach silently, moving across the carpet as stealthily as a cat. She wouldn’t know he was there until she could feel his breath on her neck.
And then things would really start to get interesting.
This was their routine. This was how Broderick liked to find her. He’d been very specific about his desires, right from the first time. That had been months earlier, a week or so after he’d used his powers of persuasion with the service manager who had refused to do the necessary repairs on Caroline’s car for free.
It only seemed right to find a way to show her gratitude.
She had researched the court records to learn more about Broderick, starting with a last name. Broderick Stiles, forty-three years old. There had been an address attached to his name, but when she went to look for it, she found a vacant lot. She could find no phone record for him, and he certainly didn’t have a Facebook page or a Twitter handle.
So she kept going back to the coffee shop where they’d first met, hoping they’d cross paths again. She tried to go at the same time of day as when she had first met him, but after a week she became discouraged, and more than a little overcaffeinated. It was on the eighth day, while paying for her latte, when she heard someone behind her say, “Car running okay?”
“Oh!” she said, whirling around.
They sat at the same table where they’d first chatted. She said, “I don’t know what you said, but they fixed the car and they were very, very nice about it.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” Broderick said.
“So what did you say?”
He had smiled. “Does it really matter?”
The thing was, she didn’t want to know. It was more fun not knowing. It was more fun imagining what he might have said, or done, to get her service manager to see reason.
She had leaned across the table, nearly touching her forehead to his, and said, “I would like to find a way to thank you.”
He said, “I have just the idea.”
The next afternoon was her first trip to the Omni. A week later there was another, and the week after that, another. And so on.
There had been occasions when Broderick was away, doing work for clients out of town. But whenever he was in New Haven, he would arrange a rendezvous.
It was not Caroline’s first affair, but it was certainly her most exciting. When it came to the bedroom, Gilbert had never been particularly imaginative. Everything was by the numbers, no accountant puns intended. Spend a little time here, spend a little time there, then hop aboard and get it done. Really, what could you say about a man who liked to keep his socks on when having sex? But it was more than that. It was not easy to work up enthusiasm for a man who, at some level, you could not bring yourself to respect.
But wait, she would sometimes ask herself. Could you respect what Broderick Stiles did for a living? (If he did what she believed he did.) She could find ways to rationalize it. He was a man who performed a service. Perhaps it was outside the bounds of what was, technically speaking, legal. But the world was an increasingly complicated place. Some problems called for unconventional solutions.
And holy fucking Christ, the sex was something else.
On this particular day, not yet twenty-four hours since Gilbert had told her about Miles’s illness, how her brother-in-law was leaving next to nothing to Gilbert except for that Porsche, that he intended to give away his fortune to a bunch of biological children he’d never so much as sent a birthday card to, Caroline had been wondering whether there was anything she could do.
Should she talk to Miles herself? Try to get him to change his mind? Would he even agree to meet with her? Could she tell him how sorry she was that she’d traded on his name with that Google exec? Tell him she wasn’t that person anymore, that she had learned her lesson?
Maybe she could remind him what a good brother Gilbert had been to him. Guilt Miles into doing what was right.
No, Miles would never listen to her. He was a selfish man. Totally self-consumed.
But she had another idea, one that was, to use one of her daughter Samantha’s favorite phrases, “pretty out there.” It was a long-term approach, and not something she could do alone. There were any number of ways it could go wrong. But, oh, if it worked... the payoff would be huge.
She wondered what Broderick would think.
So this afternoon, stretched out on the bed, and after Broderick had given her permission to take off the silk blindfold, she decided to broach the subject.
“The first time I met you,” she said, “you described yourself as a problem solver.”
“And I solved one for you,” he said.